Conventional child restraint seats include harness straps for holding a child within the seat. As shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,664 to Tanaka et al., a child restraint seat includes slots provided through the child restraint seat for passage of part of the harness from the front side to the rear side of the seat and providing anchoring means on the rear side of the seat for anchoring the harness at selected vertical locations on the rear side of the seat. In the system taught by Tanaka et al. the harness may include a hook and an anchoring means that includes a plurality of vertically spaced receiving openings for receiving the hook at selected vertical positions for adjusting the harness. Before placing a child in the child restraint seat taught by Tanaka et al., the hook must be removed from its associated opening on the rear of the seat in order to create enough slack in the harness belts on the front side of the seat to position the harness belts over the shoulders of the child. In conventional child restraint seats such as the one taught by Tanaka et al., there is a one-to-one correspondence between the amount of movement of the anchoring end of the harness straps and the amount of slack that is either created or removed from the harness straps on the front side of the child restraint seat. Additionally, adjustment of the amount of slack in the harness belts with conventional child restraint seats generally requires the use of two hands, and the anchoring end of the harness straps must be moved by a large amount to create enough slack for placing a child underneath the harness straps on the front side of the seat. In seats such as that taught by Tanaka et al., the slackened belts are laid on the seat while the child is placed in the seat. The adult must then draw the belts from behind the child to fasten the harness straps over the shoulders of the child.
In view of the foregoing problems with adjustment of harness straps on conventional child restraint seats, the process of placing a child in the child restraint seat and adjusting the harness straps to a proper tightness is generally a time consuming and complicated operation.